A good doctor treats the disease; a great doctor treats the patient.
Those are the words of William Osler, the father of modern medical education.
By that measure, I had not even become a good doctor.
"My hand, my hand......!"
Both hands trembled violently, as though an earthquake had struck.
Forget a scalpel — I could not even grip a chart properly.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
A rare disease commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in which the body gradually becomes paralyzed.
It struck me in the middle of my work as a fellow at a university hospital — an absurd act of God.
What value is there in a doctor who cannot use his hands?
I tried everything to treat the symptoms, but as they say, a monk cannot shave his own head.
"I will resign, Professor."
"Think it over once more. How many patients have you saved with your surgeries? Hands like yours are a talent that comes along once in ten years — no. Once in a hundred years, if that. You could have become an unprecedented professor of surgery."
"With hands like these, I would not cure patients. I would only harm them. Thank you for everything."
I quit the university hospital as though fleeing it.
Why did it have to be me?
I had never resented the world so bitterly.
Having given up the will to live, I passed the time in idleness.
My body collapsing bit by bit, as though melting, starting from the hands.
To escape reality, I sank into games.
"Dark fantasy...... A medieval setting?"
A bleak world ruined by the attacks of the Outer Gods, mighty enemies from another realm that humanity could not so much as resist.
You became a lone Wanderer and explored the traces of the apocalypse. To survive, you had to fight grotesque monsters without end.
Somehow it felt like my own situation, so I lost myself in it.
Though now and then my occupational habits broke the immersion.
—Do not think of leaving before your heart has been taken out, Wanderer.
—I will cure that carcass of yours with this saw!
"Every one of them calls himself a doctor and turns out to be a villain."
Medieval medicine really had been at a horrifying level.
There was no chance of finding a doctor who had studied from a proper medical text, so they were all quacks.
Disinfection and hygiene did not exist even as concepts, and the entire job of a surgeon was cutting and breaking the wounds of unanesthetized patients.
It was an era when a patient's chance of surviving surgery was under twenty percent. They killed more patients than they saved, so butcher was a fitter title than doctor.
They were the ones commonly called plague doctors, who wore crow-shaped masks and carried fearsome saws.
And this was a dark fantasy, on top of that. It seemed psychos who took pleasure in tearing human bodies apart were the ones who usually became doctors.
The justification that let fake doctors run rampant was simple.
The game's setting had apparently taken the Black Death as its motif: a plague called the Outer Gods' "Erosion" had spread and wiped out ninety percent of the entire population.
"So getting attacked by an Outer God causes Erosion, and once it spreads to the brain you become an Outer God's minion."
In simple terms, a zombie virus, more or less.
"A nervous system infection? It seems it can be suppressed to a degree with a drug called a potion."
Instead of an ordinary health bar, there sat a red traffic light, all on its own.
By common sense, physical injury to the limbs ought to restrict movement.
But a game character bounds around just fine on a sliver of health.
Then one graze and you're dead. You Died.
It makes no sense.
Normally that is something you accept as game logic, but this game attached a setting to it instead.
The Wanderer, the player character, had incredibly strong aura or whatever it was, so any injury healed naturally in an instant. Even severed limbs seemed to recover right away.
In exchange, the more you were attacked, the more the red traffic light turned gray, and when it went completely black it was game over.
It was the element that showed how far the "Erosion" infection had progressed. The setting was that the body stayed intact while the mind went to hell.
The only thing that could cure this Erosion was potions.
"It looks like this setting doesn't have any medicine besides potions to begin with."
But the body builds tolerance to potions.
The amount healed steadily dropped, and at some point it reached a stage where recovery was impossible.
"If you're hurt, you get examined and get a prescription. Tsk, tsk. What a world, turning everyone into drug addicts."
Then again, every doctor in the job was a villain, so of course there was no chance of a functioning medical system.
Well, there was no point picking apart medical accuracy in a game.
I was not a doctor or anything else anymore.
Complaining about game settings left me disgusted with myself.
There was no other reason I had chosen medicine as my career.
Money.
When I was young I did not really understand it; everyone said it was a good profession, so I made it my goal.
Once I tried it, it turned out I had talent.
Cutting, cutting, and cutting again.
I had been called a genius a few times, too.
Because I grew up poor, I wanted to open my own clinic someday and live the rest of my life without worrying about money.
I had endured those brutal night shifts in the emergency room thinking of nothing but that glittering, brilliant future.
"Life at the university hospital was hard, sure."
But it was rewarding.
Dragging a blood-soaked patient back to life.
I cannot forget the joy of seeing a patient smile wide.
"None of that has anything to do with me now."
Click. I turned my eyes to the monitor in the dark room.
To me, dazed and stripped of my dream, it was the only refuge.
"Ugh......!"
The disease worsened quickly.
It reached the point where not only my hands but my limbs and even my respiratory muscles were paralyzed.
There was no hope in living on in such a state.
I only wished to be released from the pain as soon as possible.
I slowly closed my eyes.
***
"Young Master, how long will you stand there in a daze? Pull yourself together!"
It was only moments ago that I recalled that past life.
"Give the order quickly. Are you not our commander, Young Master?"
One knight, shouting urgently in front of me.
I slowly looked around.
"So I...... was reincarnated into the game world?"
The past twenty years I had lived as the bastard son of a count's house and the memories of my former life were tangled together, leaving me disoriented.
My surroundings were a dark cave. It was not a natural formation. The walls, carved by hand what must have been centuries ago, were mildewed and damp.
"A dungeon."
The place I stood in was one of the dungeons the protagonist of the original work had adventured through and cleared.
A den of evil consumed by an Outer God. Had I recalled my past life while taking a mental attack?
"I— my name is."
"Young Master Dunker!"
"Dunker."
Yes. That was certainly my name.
Dunker Grimwald. The bastard of a count's house.
The name of the fool who, claiming he would defend the family honor, charged into this hellscape with the knight order without any preparation.
'I was definitely...... an extra mentioned only in the background lore.'
The place I was in was one of the most horrific dungeons, counted among the so-called "Eleven Great Scourges." The "Swamp of the Abyss."
In the original work, this place was the tomb of Grimwald, an old-era noble house that had been devoured by an Outer God and fallen to corruption long ago.
It was the territory that had been destroyed when an Outer God crawled up out of it, all because of the house's degenerate bastard, who had thrown together a subjugation force on his own authority.
'The degenerate bastard.'
As if to speak for that characterization, a liquor bottle was gripped in my hand.
Slosh. The smell of strong alcohol numbed my brain.
"Enough. Do you still intend to wait for Young Master Dunker's orders? Ten of our comrades died getting this far. It was all the Young Master's command that did it!"
"I cannot deny that, but......"
Another knight grabbed the shoulder of the knight who had spoken to me.
"Look at this. We barely retreated after losing to the Apostle, and Sir Charlotte, our knight commander and our last hope, has taken a critical wound. And even now the Young Master is nursing a liquor bottle."
Contempt filled the knight's eyes.
Certainly, the dungeon subjugation force had been driven to its limit largely because I, the commander, had failed to give proper orders.
'Let me sort out the situation.'
Born a bastard, I had grown up without a proper education or the family's recognition.
Several years ago, a dungeon had appeared that threatened the family's territory.
To prove my own ability to my father, the head of the house, I had forced the loan of the family knight order and assembled a subjugation force.
But there was no chance that I, who had lived dissolutely with nothing in my head, could command them properly.
'If this goes on, we will be wiped out, and the family's territory will fail to stop the Outer God and fall to corruption.'
Eight knights had survived...... was it?
One of them.
"Nngh......!"
"Commander Charlotte, the Erosion is penetrating!"
"Potion, quickly!"
"The Commander has already used too many potions. They will not hold back the Erosion any longer."
A knight was clutching her arm and groaning in pain. She did not look good.
'Charlotte, the One-Armed Swordsman.'
It was not hard to recognize who she was.
Since the original work was a live-service game, I never played through to the ending, so I did not know everything.
But Charlotte was famous enough that even I could not fail to know her.
'She was a knight whose talent was promising enough to reach Sword Master, but she lost an arm in some incident and fell into despair.'
I remembered her because she appeared as a guide and helper, a character who assisted the player.
Charlotte pushed her upper body up, breathing hard.
"Healing Knight. What is my condition?"
"A Seed has burrowed into your arm. The Erosion is progressing."
"Is there a way to treat it?"
"With respect, there is no choice but to cut off the arm......"
"Are you telling a knight to give up her arm? Absurd!"
"If we delay any longer and the Erosion reaches the brain, you will fall and become an Outer God's minion. You know very well that if it comes to that, we will have to fight you, Commander!"
"Tch......"
Charlotte wrangled with the Healing Knight.
"I will amputate the arm and cauterize the wound. Mage, a flame."
"Yes."
The mage cast a spell, and FWOOSH! A torch was ready.
Despair settled over Charlotte's face in the firelight.
Well, now.
Medieval treatment really was merciless.
"Young Master, where are you going?"
"Move aside."
Carrying the liquor bottle, I walked over to the cluster of knights with heavy steps.
I lifted Charlotte's arm and examined it.
"Young Master, what are you doing?"
"Leave the healing to us. You are in the way."
"Quiet down."
Black blister-like bumps ran in a rough, pebbled line from the back of her hand to the middle of her forearm.
The way they writhed and crawled up her arm like living organisms was quite grotesque.
The origin of the virus was surely different, of course, but the symptoms could be explained simply.
"It's cellulitis with an abscess."
"Pardon?"
"There's no need to cut off the arm. Antibiotics are the standard prescription, but since we don't have any, we'll perform an I&D. It's crude, but this was actually how the disease was treated up until the nineties."
"Eye and...... what?"
"Incision and drainage. It's an easy treatment. The necrotic tissue gets debrided."
"What in the world are you talking about...... Have you been hit by the Erosion too, Young Master?"
Oops.
The memories of my past life had come rushing in and I had mistaken this for the university hospital.
Using modern medical terms on these people was no different from speaking an alien language.
"It's simple. We just cut it open."
When I drew the dagger from my waist, the knights were horrified.
"Whoa, calm down! I told you to leave the healing to us."
"He is completely drunk. Drag him out before he does anything else!"
"Young Master!"
I glared at the knights rushing at me.
They flinched.
"Hey now, don't interfere. I'm seeing a patient."
"You are not in your right mind, Young Master."
"No, I'm clearer than I've ever been."
I held the dagger the way I would hold a scalpel.
The sensation of hundreds, thousands of operations from my past life came back to life.
Above all.
'It isn't shaking.'
The memory of struggling just to change clothes alone in my past life was vivid.
My body would spasm on its own, and I could hardly hold a cup of water properly. I had to bury my face in a basin to drink.
But now.
A healthy body that showed no strain even running through a brutal dungeon while pouring down liquor.
Ah, so it's here. The body.
With these hands, it's possible.
I can be a doctor again.
"Leave it to me. I'm a doctor."
"A doctor?"
The knights recoiled at the word.
"You are a doctor, Young Master?"
"Surely not a plague doctor?"
Oh, come on.
"However rude I may be, do I look like a psycho waving a saw around? Just leave it to me. I'll cure her without fail."
At my firm attitude, the knights glanced at one another.
Then, grip. Charlotte, the knight commander, caught my arm.
"Young Master. Can you heal my arm?"
Even on a face soaked with the cold sweat of pain, her sharp eyes were vivid.
The look of someone reaching for even a thread of hope within despair.
I knew those eyes.
Because they were the eyes I once used to meet in the mirror.
I answered with conviction.
"I can. Without cutting off the arm."
"Frankly, considering your conduct until now, I find it hard to trust you."
"I have shown you plenty of unreliable behavior, true. But this once, you can trust me. It's not as if things can get any worse anyway."
"...... Understood. I will entrust it to you."
Charlotte slowly held her arm out to me.
She was the knight order's most critical asset. In this crisis, we needed her swordsmanship at the very least if we wanted a better chance of escaping this dungeon of death.
"Bring the fire."
"F-Fire, sir?"
I thrust the dagger into the torch the mage held.
"Why are you suddenly heating the blade?"
"Sterilizing the instruments before drainage is mandatory. Put a dirty blade on her carelessly and you get a secondary infection."
"I do not quite follow what you mean......"
"Bandage."
"Ah, yes."
Next, preparation for hemostasis. The affected area was the forearm. I tied it tight just above the elbow.
Then I irrigated the site with the liquor I had been holding.
"Wait, liquor on an eroded area? What is the point of that?"
"Disinfection. Cleaning the wound is the basics."
"Is that necessary? And washing it with liquor to clean it......"
So this was the level of common knowledge in a so-called Healing Knight. That told me plenty.
I would need to explain more simply.
"Skin is the barrier that protects our body. A wound is a tear in that barrier. If you were a curse, where would you get in?"
"Through the weakest defense, obviously. ......Ah! So this act of disinfection raises the wound's defenses."
"So you're not a complete blockhead. As it happens this is high-proof vodka, so it can coagulate the pathogens."
With a flick, I gripped the dagger with practiced ease.
"Commander Charlotte, are you good at enduring pain?"
"My arm already feels as though it is burning. A blade going in will make little difference."
"Tough. I like that. Hold on just a little."
Toward the necrotizing tissue of the arm, where pus was bursting through.
—SLICE.
With practiced ease.
My hand drew a straight line.
[Forgotten Journal]
—Haah, haah! Th-Those incompetent knight bastards. Wiped out without even protecting me, the next head of the house......!
The bastard fled.
A dungeon that was a maze in every direction. He ran in pure terror, not even knowing where he was headed.
Father, why will you not acknowledge me?
A bastard I may be, but I am your only son. Not only am I no heir, you will not even accept me as a member of the family!
A degenerate! I will prove myself so that you can never call me that again. When I subjugate that dungeon, you will have to acknowledge me!
The bastard did not know.
That the reason he went unacknowledged was not his birth but his attitude.
—It's not my fault. It's the knights' fault! I never ordered Commander Charlotte's arm cut off either!
Even as he fled alone through the darkness, having failed in command and lost every one of his troops, he never once faced his own inadequacy.
And at the end of it.
—Good heavens...... So this is an Outer God.
The deepest abyss of the swamp.
He stood before an aberration that human senses could not comprehend.
—Fa......ther, I......
He was eroded.
Even as the man became part of a horde of grotesque aberrations and stained his own homeland with evil.
He acknowledged nothing.
And he was never acknowledged.
Page 53. The End of the Bastard
[A page of fate has been rewritten.]
[You acquire a Boon.]
[Eyes open.]